The Gospel of Peace, The Cross of Christ

The Gospel of Peace

The Cross of Christ

1 Corinthians 2:2-5

1Co 2:2 For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

1Co 2:3 And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.

1Co 2:4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:

1Co 2:5 that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Sometimes the simple and the obvious is the most difficult to grasp.

All the understanding, all revelation, all that God has done for us can be understood only in the finished work of the cross.

The Gospel is only understood in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

The rest of the New Testament teaching simply explains and points back to what happened on the cross.

What is the basis of the cross?

-         Basis of the entire New Covenant.

-         Basis of a relationship with God.

-         Basis of all Christianity.

-         All truth.

Any message that is not consistent with what Jesus accomplished at the cross is simply not true.

Heb 1:1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,

Heb 1:2 hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;

Prior to the cross, God had spoken in many different ways, through many different people, in many different situations.

Now however, He has said all He has to say in the Son—specifically, in the death, burial, and resurrection of His Son.

God has no other message.

What happened at the cross is the basis of the Good News that God has for the world.

The cross must become our focal point for understanding, interpreting, and judging truth.

 In other words, anything I find in the entire Bible must pass the test of the cross.

We must ask ourselves these questions:

-         Is it consistent with what Jesus accomplished on the cross?

-         Or does it contradict the cross?

A failure to interpret doctrine in light of the finished work of the cross has been the major cause of confusion and contradictory teachings.

In our failure to base our entire belief system on the cross, we have erroneously looked back to the old covenant to relate to God.

At the cross, Jesus paid the price for sin and delivered us from the curse of the law.

At the cross Jesus:

-         Was chastened so that we could have peace.

-         Was bruised with sickness so we could have healing.

-         Conquered sin.

-         Conquered death by the Resurrection and obtained righteousness.

In our unbelief, we live in expectancy of God chastening us.

 We look to some stipulation of the law to give us healing.

We try to conquer sin in our own strengthen.

We try to obtain righteousness by our own works.

We have abandoned the cross.

How have we failed and missed the central message of the cross?

-         We have verbally acknowledged the message as the apex of Christianity, but in reality our doctrine and practical application totally deny the cross.

-         Rather revolving around the message and depending on the finished work of the cross, it depends on us.

-         We are more aware of our works than we are of His work.

-         We erroneously place ourselves, instead of Jesus and His finished work, at the center of our relationship with God.

In short, we will never experience the power of God until our faith stands in the cross instead of the wisdom of men.

The simple realities of the cross are the basis for real Bible faith.

To live by faith is to:

-         Live dependant on,

-         Trusting in,

-         Adhering to,

-         Deriving Power,

From what Jesus did at the cross.

All else is simply vain imaginations

Our faith as Christians is obviously in the person of Jesus:

-         There is separating who Jesus is from what He has done.

-         There is no operation of faith apart from faith in His finished work.

This is the basis for faith

Faith (trust) based on anything else is vanity. It is a denial of the cross of Christ.

This causes us to ask some hard questions of ourselves:

-         Do we really even know what Jesus accomplished at the cross?

-         Do we really believe it?

-         Has the cross of Christ become the pivotal point around which our lives revolve?

-         Or is it an addendum to the Old Testament?

1Co 1:17 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.

We preach Christ, but we don’t preach the cross of Christ—at least not the way Paul and the early church understood it.

For that reason, we don’t see the same results he saw.

If what we believe is not consistent with the cross, we must realize that we do not yet understand it.